Why do all gas stoves/ranges have a big griddle down the middle now?

I am choosing a new range for my kitchen remodel and the nicer ones all have a griddle. What does it do that I can’t do in a regular pan or on my outdoor grill? It seems to me like it would be a bitch to clean and it would just get grease all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever even used more than two burners at the same time. What am I missing?

Bonus question: what is your recommendation for a nice range for someone who cooks regularly but isn’t and won’t ever be a gourmet?

Mine came with the griddle and a regular ‘grate’. I’d bet there’s one in the oven or the pot drawer/warming oven/broiler.
(On mine it was a ‘simmer burner’ and was the best spot for my stock pot.)

Because people use imprecise terms sometimes: range, or cooktop?

Anyway, I’ve seen two styles of griddles:

  • One kind has dedicated burners that are useless if you don’t place the griddle over it. I’d feel this is a useless setup. Lady friend has one like this and my opinion has not elevated.
  • The other is just a griddle that pops over two burners. Mine came with that. I threw the griddle in the pantry and never used it. I’m pretty cool with it, whatever.

Plug: I bought a Samsung cooktop 3 years ago with the latter style griddle, I am super super pleased with this cooktop. The griddle? whatever.

Mine came with a long narrow burner in the center, and a choice of either a griddle or a grate to go over it. The griddle is…maybe balanced on the toaster oven? At any rate, we’ve never used it. I leave the grate over the burner so the surface is flat, and i can move pots around. I think I’ve used it a couple of times making gravy, since it fits the roasting pan fairly well, but i usually just use two burners for that.

I like my GE gas oven, with convection, but it’s too old to recommend, as they don’t make it any longer.

Grill a steak in January, without freezing your butt off outside?

That sounds like a nice compromise. GF’s range griddle is off on the left and useless without the griddle, and it sticks up so if you’re shuttling pans on that side you bang into the griddle, curses!

Range. An oven with a cooktop above.

I’m in Santa Barbara so that doesn’t apply.

Isn’t that what an iron pan is for?

Yeah, i use either a cast iron frying pan (on a regular burner) or the broiler to grill steaks indoors. I’ve never used the griddle for that. Too much trouble to clean the thing.

Yeah, it’s fine. Mostly i just ignore it, and it’s not in the way, it’s just more workspace on top of the range. On the rare occasions when I’ve used it, it’s worked okay.

If it bumped up and made it hard to slide pots around i would hate it. I want to slide two pots right next to each other to strain soup, for instance.

I find it a little funny that you ask about why they all have a griddle “now” - my parents stove had one back in the 70s and it wasn’t high-end.

Some of the newer ones have a grate, so that the griddle can be used as a fifth burner. There’s probably nothing you can cook on a griddle that you can’t cook on an outdoor grill or in a regular pan but although my stove doesn’t have a built-in griddle, I’ve always had one of
these.

There is often a difference between cooking something in a pan with sides and cooking it on a flat griddle. Sometimes it cooks better on a griddle and a lot of times it’s just easier to flip pancakes/burgers , etc on a flat surface rather than in a pan with sides. There’s also the size difference - usually a built-in griddle in larger than the ones bought as a separate pan. I saw one that was described as being able to make six grilled cheese sandwiches at the same time - which is something that probably doesn’t matter to a household of two but might matter when someone is making pancakes even for three people.

My dream for the next range I buy is a double oven and five burners - because I often need more than two burners and I have to mess with oven temperatures when I have two dishes at different temperatures to go into the oven.

My Samsung range has five burners with three iron grates spanning it. The middle burner is elongated and I use it often with my wide grill press /pan. I’ll sear m/cook boneless meats on it.

The range came with a nonstick flat griddle that fits on the middle grate. I Never used it until last weekend when I decided to make pancakes on it. Opted against using a spray or butter and the pancakes puffed up and browned beautifully without sticking.

I’ll use it again, it’ll work great for warming tortillas.

It’s not for frying hamburgers. Imo.

Fair point. Now that I think about it, the 1960s era range in my childhood home had four burners and there was a metal cover in the middle that lifted up to reveal a griddle. My stepdad tried to make pan cakes on it once.

Now they are visible. Also, instead of a little grate over each burner, there is one big grate over the whole cooking area which is a huge improvement.

That was always my thing with the griddle – it’s huge and and I don’t want to clean it. Give me a pan.

GF would use her griddle to cook bacon, and the grease would flow downhill into two holes that would empty into a jar below the the cooktop. That jar would hold about one batch of bacon grease, whoopie, and you’d have to lean under the counter and unscrew it to clean each time. Not very convenient IMO.

(Good BF that I am, I eyeballed that grease jar as being the same thread as a Ball jar, and went out and bought a quart one and screwed it under the counter. Now a truly frightening amount of bacon grease can accumulate, ick)

Yeah, I just don’t fine it convenient and it’s a pain to clean. I don’t know anyone who actually uses it. I think I tried once with pancakes and it was just awkward cooking on it. Maybe if it were rotated 90 degrees. I think ours is outside near the grill.

Our new one had a griddle option. We ordered one without. Slight disagreement between my wife and me, but I didn’t think we’d ever use it.

We got the 48’ Wolf, with duel ovens and a whole lot of burners.
Best range I’ve ever used.

I am leaning towards a Wolf with dual ovens* but I only need four burners and could do without the griddle if that’s possible.

*does dual ovens = one oven and one broiler?

My understanding is that those are actually two separate ovens (both likely can be used both for conventional baking and broiling). I imagine that it’s useful if you need to be baking things at two separate temperatures, or making a large meal (e.g., Thanksgiving dinner). But, I also imagine that a lot of people who buy them rarely, if ever, use both ovens at the same time.

My mother worked for a while as secretary to a Magic Chef distributor. One of the only perks she got was the right to purchase a double oven range for the price of the single oven version. So we got one.

This was when I was around ten years old, and I lived at home until college, and to my knowledge the lower oven was NEVER used…except to store the cast iron pans she used on the cook top. See, it was a gas stove, and the always on pilot light served to keep the air in the oven warm enough to thoroughly dry off the pans and they never rusted. :grin:

My current circa 1984 oven has a regular oven and a smaller broiler below that. I don’t use the big oven that often since I have a microwave and a nice toaster oven but it does get some use. I might use the broiler two or three times a year. In my nearly 30 years in the house, I have never used both at the same time. If the hot box thing below the burners has functions for baking/regular oven-ing as well as broiling, I will be fine with just one of them.

I have also never, to my recollection, used more than two burners at once. It’s possible that there was an occasion where three were used but there was no way I used all four let alone needed more than that. Currently the cooktop is separate from the oven but I am moving to a range.